There was a twist and a tingle at the base of his skull--the invader was entering his brainstalk. It was time to play his first ace. With a burst of determination to control his reeling motor functions, Chester reached out his hand and touched the hand of the talking-attendant. Monnn swished vengefully inside him.
When they had discussed this the others had been afraid. So had Chester. Two alien forces, one hostile, both struggling, might rip and rupture his psychic system like lightning bolts battling inside a transistor. But Chester Forge was a stubborn man, with perhaps a bureaucratic stubbornness, certainly a human stubbornness, and he was committed to an end to be achieved.
For a few split seconds there was in Chester's nervous system what might be described as a "hush." He took advantage of it to step through the open door into a dimly-lighted room. The hospital director, insulation-swathed, followed with the leather-rustling husk.
Then Minnn and Monnn locked forces, and Chester reeled with the shock and swirl of the combat. The two forces mixed, fused, separated, mingled, yet Chester somehow knew always which was which, got bursts of the reasoning of each, knew in some indescribable way the alien, indecipherable natures of each of them. For an instant he panicked. Something mysterious and terrible as the dark energy of infinity was pounding and flashing in his merely human synapses and cells, something he understood yet could not understand at all.
He felt a draining, and knew Minnn was tapping him for energy. Chester rallied to help Monnn. He pulled his energy, his thoughts, away from Minnn, rolling up, balling, clenching his powers, keeping them out of reach, probing for a chance to strike. Minnn filamented through half his body; part of the alien was needling and darting into Chester's mind, burrowing toward knowledge of his plan. Chester buried his plan in the very center of the ball of thoughts, hiding his last ace.
He could not keep this up much longer, and he could feel that both Minnn and Monnn knew this. It was time for the big assault. He sent flash after flash of willpower crisping through his nerves, and Monnn interwove himself in these assaults. Minnn was being forced back, and back, intolerably pressured.